Housing minister Grant Shapps has announced that every Whitehall department with a substantial land bank will publish plans in the autumn explaining how it will free up the land.
The move is part of Shapps’ “build now, pay later” scheme, under which builders only pay for the land once they have started work on the new homes, taking pressure off their balance sheets.
Shapps believes the construction of 100,000 properties over four years could support up to 25,000 jobs.
Only 102,570 new housing starts were made last year – the lowest annual figure since 1923.
Kate Barker’s housing review, published in 2004, suggested that as a country we need to be building 240,000 homes a year in order to meet burgeoning demand.
The lack of construction has been blamed for artificially propping up the value of property in the UK. However, critics have pointed out that Schapps’ figures may be overly optimistic given the ongoing constraints on mortgage lending.
